The Local News index is a database of citations for newspaper articles about the Conejo Valley that were reported in The News Chronicle, Thousand Oaks Star, Los Angeles Times (Ventura County edition), and Daily News (Conejo Valley section) from 1985 to the present. Indexed articles include stories about the City of Thousand Oaks related to governance and politics, business, growth and development, school and park districts, crime, important events, major accidents, fires, natural disasters. Regional news stories about issues that directly impact the City of Thousand Oaks are indexed. Obituaries, birth and marriage announcements for Thousand Oaks residents are also cited. Generally speaking, articles about local sports and social events are not indexed.

The Thousand Oaks library owns microfilm of all the newspapers that are indexed. To view the full-text of an indexed article, refer to the microfilm for the appropriate paper and date. Microfilm and microfilm readers are located near the copy machines in the Thousand Oaks Library. Copies may be printed for $.25 per page. Library staff members are available to assist you.

Some of the more recent articles may be available electronically through the NewsBank database, which can be accessed from the Database link on the catalog’s menu bar.

Description of a record

Records in the Local News Index include the following

Byline

The author of the article, letter, or editorial.

Headline

The title of the article as it appeared in the newspaper.

Year

The year the article appeared in the newspaper.

Paper

Name of the newspaper in which the article appeared.

Date

The year, month, and day (in that order) of the newspaper in which the article appeared.

Section / Page / Column

The Section of the paper, page number, and column in which the article appeared.

Subject

Subject headings help describe the content of the article. These headings are selected from a subject list. You can view the list of subject headings by clicking on the Subject Headings link.

Personal names can also be subject headings.

Article Type

Identifies some specific information about the type of article or its content. The various article types include

Birth announcement

Box (Statistical or graphically displayed data enclosed in a box)

Editorial

Letter (to the editor)

Map (A map accompanies the text of the article)

Marriage Announcement

Obituary (May also include death notices)

Photograph (A photograph accompanies the text of the article)

Statistics (The article content includes statistical data)

Keyword

Descriptive terms that either appeared in the article or help further identify what the article is about.

Birth and Death Dates

Added to birth and death announcements.

Notes

Additional information about the article. For example, the title of the Box that appeared in the article, or a note that no birth date was reported in an Obituary.

Helpful Hints

Use upper or lower case. It is not necessary to capitalize proper names.

It is not necessary to type the, a, an at the beginning of titles.

The computer ignores punctuation marks.

Use the backspace on the computer keyboard to erase errors.

All blue underlined text is hyper linked. Click on it for more information.

Search Options

Byline searches the name of the person who wrote the article. Put the last name first.

Subject Search looks for subjects that have been assigned to each record. A record may contain one or more subjects. Subjects are selected from a list. Click the Subject Heading link to view the list.

Personal names are also subjects. Always put the last name first, followed by the first name. The first name is optional.

Date searches the year, month, and day (in that order) that the article was published. Always put the year first. The month and day are optional. Complete dates must be input as yyyy mm dd

1992 01 31 will search for all articles published on January 31, 1992.

Keyword Search looks for words that may be in the article headline, byline, subject, newspaper name, or notes. A Keyword Search is a good option to try if you are not satisfied with the results of a Subject search.

Enhanced search options

Limit or Sort

Use Limit or Sort to narrow your search results. If a Subject, Date, or Byline search returns a long list or records, narrow your search by one or more of the following limiters:

Newspaper name

Date

Words in the headline

Article Type

Wildcard

You can add an * (asterisk) to a word or name to search for variations in spelling. For example a search for develop* could return records that include